Tyme Sefari

Tyme Sefari is a voltage-controlled sampler/delay/looper/audio buffer developed completely in-house by The Harvestman.



Photo and text courtesy of Shawn Cleary at Analogue Haven

Using an 8-bit microcontroller and 32KB of SRAM, (no prefab delay chips here), Tyme Sefari allows you to circularly record an 8-bit audio sample, with voltage control of sampling frequency. The analog front-end of the module has a wet/dry mix control as well as a feedback attenuator (with selectable polarity).

You may optionally set two loop markers within the greater recording. when enabled, the record and playback travel will only take place between these markers. When the loop points are "inside out", interesting distortions of the buffer contents occur when the marker controls are swept. Both marker controls are manual and voltage-controllable.

The transport controls of the tyme sefari allow you to control recording, record/playback reverse, loop enable, and playback (when toggled, this control restarts playback from the beginning of the recording or loop for easy one-shot sampling.) all four of these controls can be controlled by external gate voltages in addition to the panel switches.

Expansion
The Tyme Sefari is expandable with a series of switches for "circuit bending" the behavior of the module, model 1973a "sound of thunder". These switches short out parts of the data and address busses, resulting in effects just like a modified casio sk-1. The glue logic within the tyme sefari is laid out in a similar way to the sk-1, so the changes in sound are quite similar. However, the front-panel operation of Tyme Sefari remains predictable when the expansion is active.

Specifications:
Voltage-controlled sampling rate/playback frequency. Voltage-controlled loop marker positions. Manual or gate-controlled playback direction, loop enable, record/playback Loop marker resolution: 64 samples Input attenuation control Feedback amount control, switchable polarity Wet/dry mix control 32kb internal ram, 2sec _minimum_ sampling time when loop points and sampling rate are at maximum +/-12v Doepfer-style power connector Panel size: 15hp Current consumption: ~80ma Sound of thunder expansion: Passive (causes base unit to draw up to 60ma more current) Panel size: 3hp